spirits occasioned the _soubriquet_. WALTER SCOTT.
[500] Johnson also complained of the cheese. 'In the islands they do
what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by
plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese, which mingles its
less grateful odours with the fragrance of the tea.' _Works_, ix. 52.
[501] 'The estate has not, during four hundred years, gained or lost a
single acre.' _Ib_. p. 55.
[502] Lord Stowell told me, that on the road from Newcastle to Berwick,
Dr. Johnson and he passed a cottage, at the entrance of which were set
up two of those great bones of the whale, which are not unfrequently
seen in maritime districts. Johnson expressed great horror at the sight
of these bones; and called the people, who could use such relics of
mortality as an ornament, mere savages. CROKER.
[503] In like manner Boswell wrote:--'It is divinely cheering to me to
think that there is a Cathedral so near Auchinleck [as Carlisle].'
_Ante_, iii. 416.
[504] 'It is not only in Rasay that the chapel is unroofed and useless;
through the few islands which we visited we neither saw nor heard of any
house of prayer, except in Sky, that was not in ruins. The malignant
influence of Calvinism has blasted ceremony and decency together... It
has been for many years popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the
Romish clergy; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches we
may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the
fervid activity of those who suffer them to fall.' Johnson's _Works_,
ix. 61. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'By the active zeal of Protestant
devotion almost all the chapels have sunk into ruin.' _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 152.
[505] 'Not many years ago,' writes Johnson, 'the late Laird led out one
hundred men upon a military expedition.' _Works_, ix. 59. What the
expedition was he is careful not to state.
[506] 'I considered this rugged ascent as the consequence of a form of
life inured to hardships, and therefore not studious of nice
accommodations. But I know not whether for many ages it was not
considered as a part of military policy to keep the country not easily
accessible. The rocks are natural fortifications.' Johnson's _Works_,
ix. p. 54.
[507] See _post_ Sept. 17.
[508] In Sky a price was set 'upon the heads of foxes, which, as the
number was diminished, has been gradually raised from three shillings
and sixpence to a guinea, a sum so great in this part of the world,
that, in a short time, Sky may be as free from foxes as England from
wolves. The fund for these rewards is a tax of sixpence in the pound,
imposed by the farmers on themselves, and said to be paid with great
willingness.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 57.
[509] Boswell means that the eastern coast of Sky is westward of Rasay.
CROKER.
[510] 'The Prince was hidden in his distress two nights in Rasay, and
the King's troops burnt the whole country, and killed some of the
cattle. You may guess at the opinions that prevail in this country; they
are, however, content with fighting for their King; they do not drink
for him. We had no foolish healths', _Piozzi Letters_, i. 145.
[511] See _ante_, iv. 217, where he said:--'You have, perhaps, no man
who knows as much Greek and Latin as Bentley.'
[512] See _ante_, ii. 61, and _post_, Oct. 1.
[513] See _ante_, i. 268, note 1.
[514] Steele had had the Duke of Marlborough's papers, and 'in some of
his exigencies put them in pawn. They then remained with the old
Duchess, who, in her will, assigned the task to Glover [the author of
_Leonidas_] and Mallet, with a reward of a thousand pounds, and a
prohibition to insert any verses. Glover rejected, I suppose with
disdain, the legacy, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet; who had
from the late Duke of Marlborough a pension to promote his industry, and
who talked of the discoveries which he had made; but left not, when he
died, any historical labours behind him.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 466.
The Duchess died in 1744 and Mallet in 1765. For more than twenty years
he thus imposed more or less successfully on the world. About the year
1751 he played on Garrick's vanity. 'Mallet, in a familiar conversation
with Garrick, discoursing of the diligence which he was then exerting
upon the _Life of Marlborough_, let him know, that in the series of
great men quickly to be exhibited, he should _find a niche_ for the hero
of the theatre. Garrick professed to wonder by what artifice he could be
introduced; but Mallet let him know, that by a dexterous anticipation he
should fix him in a conspicuous place. "Mr. Mallet," says Garrick in his
gratitude of exultation, "have you left off to write for the stage?"
Mallet then confessed that he had a drama in his hands. Garrick promised
to act it; and _Alfred_ was produced.' _Ib_. p. 465. See _ante_,
iii. 386.
[515] According to Dr. Warton (_Essay on Pope_, ii. 140) he received
L5000. 'Old Marlborough,' wrote Horace Walpole in March, 1742 (Letters,
i. 139), 'has at last published her _Memoirs_; they are digested by one
Hooke, who wrote a Roman history; but from her materials, which are so
womanish that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and
petticoat with them.'
[516] See _ante_, i. 153
[517] 'Hooke,' says Dr. Warton (_Essay on Pope_, ii. 141), 'was a Mystic
and a Quietist, and a warm disciple of Fenelon. It was he who brought a
Catholic priest to take Pope's confession on his death-bed.'
[518] See Cumberland's _Memoirs_, i. 344.
[519] Mr. Croker says that 'though he sold a great tract of land in
Harris, he left at his death in 1801 the original debt of L50,000
[Boswell says L40,000] increased to L70,000.' When Johnson visited
Macleod at Dunvegan, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Here, though poor
Macleod had been left by his grandfather overwhelmed with debts, we had
another exhibition of feudal hospitality. There were two stags in the
house, and venison came to the table every day in its various forms.
Macleod, besides his estate in Sky, larger I suppose than some English
counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and of his isles
uninhabited I doubt if he very exactly knows the number, I told him that
he was a mighty monarch. Such dominions fill an Englishman with envious
wonder; but when he surveys the naked mountain, and treads the quaking
moor; and wanders over the wild regions of gloomy barrenness, his wonder
may continue, but his envy ceases. The unprofitableness of these vast
domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances. The
heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me how wealthy
he should be if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence
halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate which the surveyor reports
to contain 80,000 acres, rented at L600 a year.' _Piozzi Letters_,
i. 154.
[520] They were abolished by an act passed in 1747, being 'reckoned
among the principal sources of the rebellions. They certainly kept the
common people in subjection to their chiefs. By this act they were
legally emancipated from slavery; but as the tenants enjoyed no leases,
and were at all times liable to be ejected from their farms, they still
depended on the pleasure of their lords, notwithstanding this
interposition of the legislature, which granted a valuable consideration
in money to every nobleman and petty baron, who was thus deprived of one
part of his inheritance.' Smollett's _England_, iii. 206. See _ante_, p.
46, note 1, and _post_, Oct. 22.
[521] 'I doubt not but that since the regular judges have made their
circuits through the whole country, right has been everywhere more
wisely and more equally distributed; the complaint is, that litigation
is grown troublesome, and that the magistrates are too few and therefore
often too remote for general convenience... In all greater questions
there is now happily an end to all fear or hope from malice or from
favour. The roads are secure in those places through which forty years
ago no traveller could pass without a convoy...No scheme of policy has
in any country yet brought the rich and poor on equal terms to courts of
judicature. Perhaps experience improving on experience may in time
effect it.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 90.
[522] He described Rasay as 'the seat of plenty, civility, and
cheerfulness.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 152.
[523] 'We heard the women singing as they _waulked_ the cloth, by
rubbing it with their hands and feet, and screaming all the while in a
sort of chorus. At a distance the sound was wild and sweet enough, but
rather discordant when you approached too near the performers.'
Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. 307.
[524] She had been some time at Edinburgh, to which she again went, and
was married to my worthy neighbour, Colonel Mure Campbell, now Earl of
Loudoun, but she died soon afterwards, leaving one daughter. BOSWELL.
'She is a celebrated beauty; has been admired at Edinburgh; dresses her
head very high; and has manners so lady-like that I wish her head-dress
was lower.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 144. See _ante_, iii. 118.
[525]
'Yet hope not life from _grief_ or danger free,
_Nor_ think the doom of man reversed for thee.'
_The Vanity of Human Wishes_.
[526] 'Rasay accompanied us in his six-oared boat, which he said was his
coach and six. It is indeed the vehicle in which the ladies take the air
and pay their visits, but they have taken very little care for
accommodations. There is no way in or out of the boat for a woman but by
being carried; and in the boat thus dignified with a pompous name there
is no seat but an occasional bundle of straw.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 152.
In describing the distance of one family from another, Johnson
writes:--'Visits last several days, and are commonly paid by water; yet
I never saw a boat furnished with benches.' _Works_, ix. 100.
[527] See _ante_, ii. 106, and iii. 154.
[528] 'They which forewent us did leave a Roome for us, and should wee
grieve to doe the same to these which should come after us? Who beeing
admitted to see the exquisite rarities of some antiquaries cabinet is
grieved, all viewed, to have the courtaine drawen, and give place to new
pilgrimes?' _A Cypresse Grove_, by William Drummond of Hawthorne-denne,
ed. 1630, p. 68.
[529] See _ante_, iii. 153, 295.
[530]
'While hoary Nestor, by experience wise,
To reconcile the angry monarch tries.'
FRANCIS. Horace, i _Epis_. ii. II.
[531] _See ante_, p. 16.
[532] Lord Elibank died Aug. 3, 1778, aged 75. _Gent. Mag._ 1778, p.
391.
[533] A term in Scotland for a special messenger, such as was formerly
sent with dispatches by the lords of the council.
[534] Yet he said of him:--'There is nothing _conclusive_ in his talk.'
_Ante_ iii. 57.
[535] 'I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and
dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and
willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre.'
Johnson's _Works_, vii. 402. See _ante_, iv. 263.
[536] Johnson says (_ib_. ix. 156) that when the military road was made
through Glencroe, 'stones were placed to mark the distances, which the
inhabitants have taken away, resolved, they said, "to have no
new miles."'
[537]
'The lawland lads think they are fine,
But O they're vain and idly gawdy;
How much unlike that graceful mien
And manly look of my highland laddie.'
From '_The Highland Laddie_, written long since by Allan Ramsay, and now
sung at Ranelagh and all the other gardens; often fondly encored, and
sometimes ridiculously hissed.' _Gent. Mag_. 1750, p. 325.
[538] 'She is of a pleasing person and elegant behaviour. She told me
that she thought herself honoured by my visit; and I am sure that
whatever regard she bestowed on me was liberally repaid.' _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 153. In his _Journey_ (_Works_, ix. 63) Johnson speaks of
Flora Macdonald, as 'a name that will be mentioned in history, and if
courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.'
[539] This word, which meant much the same as, _fop_ or _dandy_, is
found in Bk. x. ch. 2 of Fielding's _Amelia_ (published in 1751):--'A
large assembly of young fellows, whom they call bucks.' Less than forty
years ago, in the neighbourhood of London, it was, I remember, still
commonly applied by the village lads to the boys of a boarding-school.
[540] This word was at this time often used in a loose sense, though
Johnson could not have so used it. Thus Horace Walpole, writing on May
16, 1759 (_Letters_, iii. 227), tells a story of the little Prince
Frederick. 'T'other day as he was with the Prince of Wales, Kitty Fisher
passed by, and the child named her; the Prince, to try him, asked who
that was? "Why, a Miss." "A Miss," said the Prince of Wales, "why are
not all girls Misses?" "Oh! but a particular sort of Miss--a Miss that
sells oranges."' Mr. Cunningham in a note on this says:--'Orange-girls
at theatres were invariably courtesans.'
[541] _Governor_ was the term commonly given to a tutor, especially a
travelling tutor. Thus Peregrine Pickle was sent first to Winchester and
afterwards abroad 'under the immediate care and inspection of a
governor.' _Peregrine Pickle_, ch. xv.
[542] He and his wife returned before the end of the War of
Independence. On the way back she showed great spirit when their ship
was attacked by a French man of war. Chambers's _Rebellion in
Scotland_, ii. 329.
[543] I do not call him _the Prince of Wales_, or _the Prince_, because
I am quite satisfied that the right which the _House of Stuart_ had to
the throne is extinguished. I do not call him, the _Pretender_, because
it appears to me as an insult to one who is still alive, and, I suppose,
thinks very differently. It may be a parliamentary expression; but it is
not a gentlemanly expression. I _know_, and I exult in having it in my
power to tell, that THE ONLY PERSON in the world who is intitled to be
offended at this delicacy, thinks and feels as I do; and has liberality
of mind and generosity of sentiment enough to approve of my tenderness
for what even _has been_ Blood Royal. That he is a _prince_ by
_courtesy_, cannot be denied; because his mother was the daughter of
Sobiesky, king of Poland. I shall, therefore, _on that account alone_,
distinguish him by the name of _Prince Charles Edward_. BOSWELL. To have
called him the _Pretender_ in the presence of Flora Macdonald would have
been hazardous. In her old age, 'such is said to have been the virulence
of the Jacobite spirit in her composition, that she would have struck
any one with her fist who presumed, in her hearing, to call Charles _the
Pretender_.' Chambers's _Rebellion in Scotland_, ii. 330.
[544] This, perhaps, was said in allusion to some lines ascribed to
_Pope_, on his lying, at John Duke of Argyle's, at Adderbury, in the
same bed in which Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, had slept:
'With no poetick ardour fir'd,
I press [press'd] the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he liv'd [lov'd], or here expir'd,
Begets no numbers, grave or gay.'
BOSWELL.
[545] See _ante_, iv. 60, 187.
[546] See _ante_, iv. 113 and 315.
[547] 'This was written while Mr. Wilkes was Sheriff of London, and when
it was to be feared he would rattle his chain a year longer as Lord
Mayor.' Note to Campbell's _British Poets_, p. 662. By 'here' the poet
means at _Tyburn_.
[548] With virtue weigh'd, what worthless trash is gold! BOSWELL.
[549] Since the first edition of this book, an ingenious friend has
observed to me, that Dr. Johnson had probably been thinking on the
reward which was offered by government for the apprehension of the
grandson of King James II, and that he meant by these words to express
his admiration of the Highlanders, whose fidelity and attachment had
resisted the golden temptation that had been held out to them. BOSWELL.
[550] On the subject of Lady Margaret Macdonald, it is impossible to
omit an anecdote which does much honour to Frederick, Prince of Wales.
By some chance Lady Margaret had been presented to the princess, who,
when she learnt what share she had taken in the Chevalier's escape,
hastened to excuse herself to the prince, and exlain to him that she was
not aware that Lady Margaret was the person who had harboured the
fugitive. The prince's answer was noble: 'And would _you_ not have done
the same, madam, had he come to you, as to her, in distress and danger?
I hope--I am sure you would!' WALTER SCOTT.
[551] This old Scottish _member of parliament_, I am informed, is still
living (1785). BOSWELL.
[552] I cannot find that this account was ever published. Mr. Lumisden
is mentioned _ante_, ii. 401, note 2.
[553] This word is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.
[554] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 153) describes him in 1745 as 'a
good-looking man of about five feet ten inches; his hair was dark red,
and his eyes black. His features were regular, his visage long, much
sunburnt and freckled, and his countenance thoughtful and melancholy.'
When the Pretender was in London in 1750, 'he came one evening,' writes
Dr. W. King (_Anec_. p. 199) 'to my lodgings, and drank tea with me; my
servant, after he was gone, said to me, that he thought my new visitor
very like Prince Charles. "Why," said I, "have you ever seen Prince
Charles?" "No, Sir," said the fellow, "but this gentleman, whoever he
may be, exactly resembles the busts which are sold in Red Lionstreet,
and are said to be the busts of Prince Charles." The truth is, these
busts were taken in plaster of Paris from his face. He has an handsome
face and good eyes.'
[555] Sir Walter Scott, writing of his childhood, mentions 'the stories
told in my hearing of the cruelties after the battle of Culloden. One or
two of our own distant relations had fallen, and I remember of (sic)
detesting the name of Cumberland with more than infant hatred.'
Lockhart's _Scott_, i. 24. 'I was,' writes Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_, p.
190), 'in the coffee-house with Smollett when the news of the battle of
Culloden arrived, and when London all over was in a perfect uproar of
joy.' On coming out into the street, 'Smollett,' he continues,
'cautioned me against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover my
country, and become insolent, "for John Bull," says he; "is as haughty
and valiant to-night as he was abject and cowardly on the Black
Wednesday when the Highlanders were at Derby." I saw not Smollett again
for some time after, when he shewed me his manuscript of his _Tears of
Scotland_. Smollett, though a Tory, was not a Jacobite, but he had the
feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that were said
to be exercised after the battle of Culloden.' See _ante_, ii. 374, for
the madman 'beating his straw, supposing it was the Duke of Cumberland,
whom he was punishing for his cruelties in Scotland in 1746.'
[556] 'He was obliged to trust his life to the fidelity of above fifty
individuals, and many of these were in the lowest paths of fortune. They
knew that a price of L30,000 was set upon his head, and that by
betraying him they should enjoy wealth and affluence.' Smollett's _Hist.
of England_, iii. 184.
[557] 'Que les hommes prives, qui se plaignent de leurs petites
infortunes, jettent les yeux sur ce prince et sur ses ancetres.' _Siecle
de Louis XV_, ch. 25.
[558] 'I never heard him express any noble or benevolent sentiments, or
discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortunes of so many worthy
men who had suffered in his cause. But the most odious part of his
character is his love of money, a vice which I do not remember to have
been imputed by our historians to any of his ancestors, and is the
certain index of a base and little mind. I have known this gentleman,
with 2000 Louis d'ors in his strong box, pretend he was in great
distress, and borrow money from a lady in Paris, who was not in affluent
circumstances.' Dr. W. King's _Anec._ p. 201. 'Lord Marischal,' writes
Hume, 'had a very bad opinion of this unfortunate prince; and thought
there was no vice so mean or atrocious of which he was not capable; of
which he gave me several instances.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 464.
[559] _Siecle de Louis XIV_, ch. 15. The accentuation of this passage,
which was very incorrect as quoted by Boswell, I have corrected.
[560] By banishment he meant, I conjecture, transportation as a
convict-slave to the American plantations.
[561] Wesley in his _Journal_--the reference I have mislaid--seemed from
this consideration almost to regret a reprieve that came to a
penitent convict.
